Tag Archives: health

Altered states

I’ve spent most of the last few weeks in an altered state. My herniated disc is almost always on my mind. The meds have numbed most of the pain, but I’m often feeling like my head is not screwed on tight enough. The description I use is ‘loopy’ which I describe as somewhere between mildly drunk and mildly high. The challenge is that I don’t really enjoy this state, and I find it hard to concentrate. It’s not a feeling I enjoy.

Even writing my Daily Ink has been challenging with me often putting these short posts away for a while and coming back to them. I end up doing a lot of edits… like making this new thought into a new paragraph and breaking a stream of consciousness run-on sentence up in the previous paragraph. I also used a wrong word (probably a typo) and I’m struggling to make sense of what I actually wanted to say… the sentence no longer having any meaning for me.

At least I’m no longer adding to the altered state with (legal in BC, Canada) marijuana gummies , which I was supplementing my pain meds with to manage my pain between pills. As much as I don’t enjoy the loopy feeling now, I enjoyed it less when I had to numb myself to doldrums of constant pain.

New meds that I started Friday night are leaving me with windows of clarity I haven’t had for a while, but also reintroduce new levels of ache and discomfort (verging on pain) that I thought I was free of on the more loopy medication.

Overall… I think I’m on the mend, but I am not there yet. I’m now dealing with feelings I know I should let go of, but struggle with. Feeling that I should start catching up on work, feelings that I will be in recovery for a very long time. Feelings that I’m wasting away life in a loopy altered state. I’m on the mend, I’m in the mend, I’m on the mend… that is what I need to focus on, loopy altered state or not.

What I’m dealing with

Any regular reader of my daily blog knows I’ve been dealing with neck, back, and shoulder pain. I was scheduled for a CT scan and fortunately a cancellation allowed me to jump the queue and I’ve already had it. Diagnosis: left sided disc herniation at C4/5, most likely impinging the C5 nerve route.

I just have the diagnosis from a nurse and haven’t spoken to my doctor, but I do know there is no quick fix. Its disappointing, quite literally ‘disc’ was the one word I was hoping not to hear.

I’ve made a decision that I won’t post about this issue any more, unless it’s good news. So, no more sharing about the pain I’m in, but maybe that means that I might miss posting on the occasional day. Quite simply, I don’t have a lot to share when my brain is taxed with a constant ache or pain.

I’m giving myself permission not to post daily until my physical condition changes. So that’s why there wasn’t a post yesterday, a day I took off of work after getting very little sleep Sunday night. I struggle to write when I’m in pain, it takes me much longer to write and edit. So for the next couple months at least, my Daily Ink might not be daily. I hope to be myself and posting religiously every day again soon.

Feeling sedentary

My thoughts aren’t so clear these days. Not only does my back and shoulder pain continue, but I had a fall and scraped up my knee pretty badly. I can barely bend my knee without stretching the wound and causing a fair bit of pain. On the bright side my knee pain can distract me from my shoulder pain… that may not sound like a bright side, but it really is.

My frustration now is that cardio has been my only exercise beyond stretching. I’ve enjoyed my stationary bicycle and walks on the treadmill, and my knee is way too sore for either of these right now. So for now I’m stuck being very sedentary. I’m stuck taking strong medication that makes me a bit dizzy at times. I’m stuck in a holding pattern of discomfort, pain, and inactivity. Sometimes the path to getting better is doing less… and that’s what my body is telling me to do right now.

Health and history

I had a dental cleaning today. I get one every 6 months. As I was sitting in the chair I thought about how far we’ve come in dental hygiene over the last few hundred years. I thought about how debilitating it would have been to need a root canal before root canals were a thing. Tooth aches can be an all consuming pain, and life before dentists could have been an agonizing experience.

So many inventions have saved lives: from penicillin to pacemakers, vaccines to vitamins, antibiotics to aspirin… science and medicine have been invented, created, and discovered to make our lives less painful and a lot safer.

We still have a ways to go with the likes of cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases yet to be beaten, but we’ll get there in my children’s lifetime, if not mine. Technology is getting better and the science of longevity is very promising. Soon our visits to the washroom will be more like doctor visits, with our urine and faeces being sampled and tested by our toilets, and an app on our phones will notify us if there are any health concerns to worry about.

It’s a marvel to think about how much has been done in the world of science and medicine to make our lives healthier and longer. It took a dental assistant getting plaque off of my not-flossed-regularly-enough teeth to help me appreciate the value of modern science. And, I’m happy to report that I’m cavity free!

Not Firing All Cylinders

When your body isn’t working as smoothly as it should it’s hard to stay motivated. My back and neck issues continue to plague me, and I find it hard to give 100% to anything I do. My workouts have become mostly cardio and stretching, but at least I can do this maintenance. However it’s not just physical, mentally the injury is wearing me down.

It’s hard to keep my attention on something other than the discomfort and pain I feel. Moments like right now are rare, where I’m not actually aware of my shoulder or arm. I feel normal. But I’m going to get out of bed and slowly the pain will creep in. Still, I’m lucky because yesterday pain is what woke me up, and there was almost no break from it all day.

I have such sympathy and empathy for anyone and everyone that deals with pain regularly. I’m approaching 6 weeks of this and I’m finding it very hard to stay positive. Yet I know this will eventually pass. I know I’ll get all my cylinders up and running again. The trick is to care for myself now, and let my body heal. But until it does, it’s hard to think about other things clearly. When the pain is deep, the pain becomes topical… it sits on my mind and reminds me of its presence… it stays on my mind and doesn’t let me do anything without a reminder that my body is uncomfortable. When my body isn’t running well, neither is my mind, it’s not like they are separate operating systems, they both need to be working well. And that needs to be my main focus.

Incrementally better

I’ve had a cough for 18 days now. The first week was really rough, then I started to feel a bit better. Each day has been slightly better than the day before. Each night has been a slightly better night, with less coughing and waking up… but it has been really slow progress.

This is a challenge with ‘getting better’ in general, not just from recovering from this nasty flu. When we are trying to work out and get stronger, when we are looking for gains in our fitness, we often see them pretty quick in the beginning, but then we get on a slow path of small gains that are hard to notice.

We want to see great gains. We want to be instantly rewarded for our hard work. But the gains are incremental and sometimes unnoticeable for long periods of time. The personal best achievements don’t come every day. And we don’t always notice the gains when we want to. We quickly notice the setbacks, but not always the gains.

Recovering so slowly has made me see improvements I usually ignore… because I’m looking for them, and I’m appreciative of any improvement. But working out I don’t pay attention to tiny gains in pursuit of bigger ones.

I’m going to be a bit more appreciative of the tiny gains in my fitness from now on. I’ll look for them, and know that I’m getting incrementally better. Who knows, these small moments of appreciation might even make me incrementally happier. 😁

Turtle mode

I’m just turtling right now. I’ve had a bad cough for over a week, and I’m worn out. Last night I felt like things were getting worse, but this afternoon I feel like I’ve turned a positive corner. I had covid in November and now an ugly cough to start the new year… this hasn’t really been enjoyable.

Two years of wearing masks kept me healthy for a long time and being hit this hard twice in just a couple months had been challenging and exhausting. So, I’m curled up with a blanket, I’m drinking a lot of liquids, and I’m medicating myself with cold, cough, and sinus pills every few hours.

No plans, no agenda. Netflix, my audio book, and sleep. I’m turtling all weekend long.

Hit hard

On the 30th I started feeling a cough coming on and it was full blown with a lot of sinus pain on New Year’s Eve. Thank goodness the sinus pain subsided for my flights home on the 1st because I’ve travelled on a plane with sinus pain before and it was a horrible experience. However, my cough got progressively worse and I’ve been knocked on my butt, coughing and exhausted for 3 days now.

I started to feel a bit more human again around noon today, but I’m still feeling hit pretty hard by this bug. I have to say that this flu and Covid back in November have both been the hardest I can ever recall being hit by the flu. I don’t normally spend most of the day exhausted and sleeping, and I usually bounce back quick, even if a cough lingers a while. These last two time have been much harder on me, they are hitting different.

I can’t wait to get back to my regular routine again but right now I really need to listen to my body and take the time I need to recover…Easier said than done… I’ve got so much to do!

Not all cylinders firing

It has been well over a week since I was hit with this cough and it is still wiping me out. I went home at lunch yesterday and slept for over an hour before I could do anything remotely productive. This morning my cough isn’t sounding a whole lot better. I’m reminded of the chronic fatigue that hit me a few years ago.

I wrote We are One recently, about the interconnectedness of our minds and bodies. It only takes an experience like this to understand how our brains are affected by the wellness of our bodies. It’s not just that I’m coughing, it’s that my whole body is working to get better.

I’ve heard a number of people tell me they’ve had similar coughs and it took two weeks before they started to recover. I’ll keep going to bed early, drink a lot of fluids, and keep the Tylenol flu medicine flowing to prevent a sinus infection that I tend to be prone to… and hopefully my body (and mind) will be running on all cylinders soon.

Taking the needed time

I took a sick day on Monday for my first cough in years, and it got worse later in the day. Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I retested myself and tested positive for covid. I avoided it for 2.5 years but here I am now in quarantine in our spare bedroom, only leaving to go to the bathroom. My cough is still bad, but this afternoon my sinuses feel clearer and the low grade but constant headache that developed Monday night has subsided with the aid of Advil. I know it’s not over but if that’s the worst of it, a typical sinus infection of yesteryear was more unpleasant (though didn’t sound as bad with this cough). Still, I have a good feeling that I’ll be in full form next week.

What was interesting these past few days was that the headache kept me from my computer and screens more than usual. I took naps and I listened to podcasts and a book to pass a bit of the boredom by, but it was very unusual for me to listen to my body and not just work from home all day. I did do a couple pressing things and answered some texts, but overall I really took sick days and didn’t just work from home while sick.

This was extremely unusual for me. It didn’t come without stress… I haven’t had this many unread emails in well over a year. I have things on my ‘to do’ list that kept creeping into my thoughts even when I tried to let them go. And, I felt guilty that I wasn’t working. That’s the crazy part, I’m home sick, and much of the day I’m thinking about work or feeling guilty for not doing work. I don’t think that’s what’s intended to be done on a sick day?

I’m glad I took the time I needed and I’m willing to bet that I wouldn’t feel as ‘good’ (well at least as ‘fair’) as I do now, had I not taken this time mostly off. And yet I already know that even though I am not going in to work tomorrow, I’m going to be spending at least a few hours catching up. I should probably take the full day off, but I won’t.

I’ll take this as a win for taking the time I needed the past three days. But after 55 years on this planet I still need to figure out that work/life balance thing a little better, so that I can take a guilt-free sick day… to be sick. I’ll probably retire before I really know how to do it right.